Billy the Kid

Henry McCarty
Nov. 23, 1859--July 14, 1881
New York City, NY
aka, William H. Bonney; Billy Bonney; Kid; Billy the Kid

The Lincoln County War (1878-81) in eastern New Mexico made the reputation of William H. Bonney, a name Henry McCarty began using at the age of 14 or 15. While working as a cowhand in the Pecos Valley, the teenager witnessed the murder of his employer by cattle barons and became obsessed with revenge.

A ballet based on his life, with music by Aaron COPLAND, was first performed in Chicago in 1938.

Born to immigrants Catherine and Michael McCarty, who along with millions of others fled the famines and poverty of Ireland, Henry and his brother, Joe, witnessed their mother's marriage to William Antrim in Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory, on March 1, 1873. The wedding formally recognized a common law relationship that began in Indianapolis, Indiana, as early as 1865.

When Catherine McCarty Antrim succumbs to tuberculosis in Silver City, New Mexico, on September 16, 1874, her husband, working the mines in Mogollon, has no time to watch Henry. At the age of fourteen and basically on his own, Henry finds himself drawn to the wilder side of frontier life. Wandering the Southwest working a number of jobs, he now responds to the name Billy Bonney, having lost Henry Antrim somewhere on the trail. Over the next few years he progresses from laundry thief to cowboy to rustler.

In Fort Grant, Arizona Territory, on August 17, 1877, Billy, who is now known as "Kid", confronts a blacksmith, F.P. Cahill, in a saloon. Cahill and Billy have argued before, and when the burly Irishman picks yet another fight, Billy whips out a pistol and shoots his tormentor in the stomach. Cahill dies the next day. The young outlaw, only 17 and now a killer, flees Arizona for New Mexico as a coroner's jury indicts him for "criminal and unjustifiable murder." In New Mexico Billy shows up in Lincoln, a farming community on the banks of the Rio Bonito.

Employed as a ranchhand with a wealthy English businessman and cattleman named John Henry Tunstall, Billy acts as hired gun in a dispute between Tunstall and rival merchants Lawrence G. Murphy and James J. Dolan. Murphy owned no cattle, yet held a virtual monopoly on the selling of beef to army posts and Indian reservations and managed to maintain tight control over the small ranchers and all the judges, politicians, and lawmen in the county. What began as a price war becomes a range war when on February 18, 1878 the brash young Tunstall (only twenty-three) is assassinated by Murphy's men while Billy and a group of Tunstall cowboys watch helplessly from a nearby mesa. Though arrest warrants are issued for several Murphy-Dolan men, Sheriff William Brady refuses to arrest them.

On March 9, 1878, Billy and other members of Tunstall's posse, or "Regulators," which include Dick Brewer (Tunstall's foreman), Charlie Bowdre, William McCloskey, John Middleton, Frank McNab, Henry Brown, J.G. Seurlock, Wayt Smith, and Jim French, track down and kill Frank Baker and William Morton -- two of the chief suspects in John Tunstall's murder.

In Lincoln, New Mexico, on April 1, 1878, the Regulators ambush and kill Sheriff Brady and a deputy on Lincoln's main street. Billy is purportedly shot while retrieving warrants from Brady's pockets.

Three days later, April 4, 1878 in Mescalero, New Mexico, "Buckshot" Roberts, a suspect in Tunstall's murder, is cornered at Blazer's Mill. Before being fatally wounded by Bowdre, Roberts kills Tunstall's foreman, Dick Brewer. The Regulators leave the two dead men and return to the hills above Lincoln, where Billy now takes leadership of the group. It is around this time that a Texas youth named Tom O'Folliard rides into Lincoln County. When he and Billy become close compadres, Tom joins the Regulators.

July 15-19, 1878: Lincoln, New Mexico. Dolan's men lay siege to Billy and his Regulators, who are holed up in the house of Alexander McSween, Tunstall's lawyer and business partner. The 5 day siege is tainted when soldiers from nearby Fort Stanton arrive to assist Dolan. On the last day, law officers torch the house and kill McSween and three Regulators when they attempt escape. Billy and Tom manage to escape in a hail of gunfire.

1878-1880: Having spent the last two years rustling cattle and avoiding arrest for the murder of Sheriff Brady, Billy and the remaining Regulators make Fort Sumner their headquarters. Their evenings are spent at the cantina of ex-buffalo hunter Pat Garrett, where Billy deals monte. Lew Wallace, appointed Governor of New Mexico Territory, declares amnesty for participants in the Lincoln War for those who will testify against Dolan. Billy accepts, but the governor doesn't keep his bargain. Billy manages to escape custody. Pat Garrett is elected Lincoln County Sheriff and vows to bring in the Kid.

As Billy and his group enter Fort Sumner on December 23, 1880, they are ambushed by Garrett's posse. O'Folliard is shot to death but Billy, Charlie Bowdre, Tom Pickett, Dave Rudabaugh, and Billy Wilson flee into the darkness. On December 25, two days later, they are captured at Stinking Springs after Garrett kills Bowdre. Even after capture, Billy is reckless and jovial. He delights in the attention he gets from the press and curious townsfolk, and jokes with Garrett as though there were no end to his morrows. Tried in Mesilla, Billy is convicted of the murder of Brady and is sent back to Lincoln to await hanging. One of his guards is Bob Olinger, a former enemy in the Lincoln War.

April 18, 1881: Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Sentenced to hang on May 13, Billy awaits execution in a second-story room in Lincoln's courthouse, which ironically was formerly Dolan's store. Employing his traditional reckless tactics, Billy escapes, but in the process kills his guard, J.W. Bell. Before fleeing the building, Billy shoots Olinger with the man's own shotgun. Garrett returns from collecting taxes to find the two dead deputies. A $500 reward is placed on Billy the Kid's head, and Pat Garrett starts the search.

The Kid spends the months after his escape from Lincoln hiding out among his Hispanic friends around Fort Sumner. On July 14, 1881, Sheriff Garrett, with deputies John Poe and Tip McKinney, track Billy to the Fort Sumner post. In the darkened room of Pete Maxwell, Garrett encounters the young fugitive, yet unsure of his target the sheriff hesitates. When Billy asks, "Quien es?" (Spanish for: who is it) Garrett fires. Billy the Kid, twenty-one years of age, drops dead, a bullet in his heart.

Twenty-one notches in his gun, one for every year of his short and violent life, Billy the Kid is buried in the old Fort Sumner cemetery next to his compadres and fellow Regulators Charlie Bowdre and Tom O'Folliard.